True Grit....

I have not seen that movie, yet....but I feel that it is probably a fitting title for what we have been through the past few days on the trail.

After leaving Mountain Crossings hostel on Saturday, we headed out in the pouring rain & freezing cold. We made it to Hog Pen Gap and realized it was almost 5 miles to the next shelter. We were soaked & freezing! We called Matt (who works at Mountain Crossings and does shuttle runs) and lucky enough for us he was at the store, and he was able to come pick us up. Matt and Ramblin' came driving up to our rescue. They took us to Blood Mountain Cabins (which are AMAZINGGGG) and we stayed there and took a zero day the next day. This hypothermic experience really, really cut my confidence down to about nothing.

On Monday, my dad headed back home, while Matt dropped Casey and I off in the woods again to begin our trek. We started out on another misty, but not horribly miserable day. We made it to the first shelter pretty early so we decided to forge on. However, we couldn't make it to the next shelter, so we decided to camp out. We were hoping since there were so many hikers on he trail, that we would have some company. We did not. It was super scary. We don't want to do that again. We woke up on Tuesday morning with everything damp and nasty. Oh yeah, and everything was COLD, really, really COLD!!! We all know that Lauren does not do WET AND COLD!!! Casey was having a terrible morning, he was ready to quit. I wasn't sure what to say, he seemed so intent on going home....his mind was made up. As the day went on, we finally decided we would hike to Unicoi Gap and get a ride to Helen and talk things out. Thank goodness, we met up with a bunch of other hikers in good spirits at Unicoi. I think once we started interacting with PEOPLE again, it helped Casey's mood a little bit. We split a taxi with some other hikers and we were off to stay at the Helendorf Inn (awesome place, super hiker-friendly). We decided to take another zero in order to skip out on some more bad weather. We are going to head out tomorrow morning with another hiker staying here. Tomorrow's weather has changed, it is not supposed to be as good as we expected, but we know we just need to get back out there. So we are probably in for a miserable few days again.

Pretty much most of the people we started with are already in NC. I feel that we need to MOVE. Everyone keeps telling me that it is early, and it is still okay to pace myself right now...that is hard to hear though when you know everyone else is so far ahead.

Thank you to Rachel for our pack shakedowns at Mountain Crossings. Also, thank you to Logan for doing everything you possibly could to help my "taters". And a big thank you to Matt for bailing us out of trouble so much!!!

Please pray for us....
It might be a rough few days coming up....Sunday looks good though, as of now...

I do not have my cell phone right now, my dad let me borrow his because mine was barely getting any signal at all...he will send it back to me later on...

Oh, another thru-hiker just checked-in the hotel...a GIRL....I'm not the only girl....I'm going to go see if I can meet her!!

We love and miss you alll.....so MUCH!!!!!!

Love Lauren (Trail Name = Journey)